Ghana’s speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye is urging various African countries to take into consideration the need of strengthening their affirmative action law to protect the rights of women.

According to him, women continue to increase on the African continent but only a few are seen in high positions which can be a problem for good governance.

“Today the rise of women continues to nimble on the periphery. Generally speaking political representation in African parliament are some 25 percent of the populace, when women are generally about 51% of the population. Shall we continue to take these things for granted or bring out serious affirmative action laws so as to protect the rights and improve the rights of women”, he stated.

He reiterated that until countries get the aspect right, they will still dangle and not move forward in the process of deepening democracy, so, therefore, urged them to change their attitudes by using the law as an instrument of social engineering in the process of consolidating good governance.

Prof. Mike Oquaye said this while addressing delegates at the High-Level Policy Dialogue on the future of governance in Africa on the theme “Is a new concept of governance the key to accelerating the prosperity agenda?” on Friday, September 29, at the Kempinski Gold Coast City Hotel in Accra.

The High-Level Policy Dialogue organized by the United Nations Development is a two-day programme which ends on September 30.

It seeks to bring together leading policy-makers, practitioners, academics and civil society organizations.